The recent news that Google will be starting its own YouTube-branded streaming music service came as a shock that we really shouldn't have been shocked at. I guess YouTube has always just been there ... being YouTube, and now the idea of carving it up into smarter and more usable sections is a good idea.

Of course, all of the other streaming music services should be rightly terrified of a formalized YouTube Music streaming service ... Apple's iTunes Radio is enough of a competitor for Pandora Radio and Spotify and the other others. But YouTube Music? The 8 billion pound gorilla is about to drop and there's nothing they can do about it!

"By the end of the year, YouTube, a division of Google, will unveil a paid subscription music service to compete with Spotify and other streaming outlets, according to people briefed on the company’s plans," reads a report in the NY Times.

It's often overlooked, but YouTube is already is the world's largest streaming music service. But its random and iterative approach that combines videos, lyric videos, audio-only streams and more in the form of videos, user-generated random footage and all the rest is a messy but incredible onslaught of music and video.

The idea of shaping that up under a dedicated roof of a streaming service, with free ad-supported options as well as a paid subscription model sounds juicy.

It also sounds great for independent bands to get out there, as YouTube and Google Music have always been very supportive of bands with a record label deal, giving them plenty of resources and platforms to promote.

"The service, designed with mobile listening in mind, will have a free component and a premium tier that offers unlimited access to a full catalog of tracks similar to what's already available via YouTube's parent company, Google Inc., via its All Access subscription music service. Premium features would include the ability to cache music for offline listening and removing ads," reads the report in Billboard.

So would you pay for a premium YouTube music service to get rid of the ads? What if the included a dedicated mobile app?